Plant knowledge Aloe vera

The effect of Aloe vera on the skin

The moisturising, regenerating and healing power of aloe vera has been a p art of popular medicine for centuries. The secret of its effect lies in the holistic interaction of over 200 different vital substances, such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

Pure Aloe vera juice intensively supports the natural process of continuous skin cell regeneration and provides a large reservoir of nutrients with high bio-availability to stimulate cell renewal. This is because Aloe vera juice has a large number of ingredients in natural compounds including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, various secondary plant compounds and also mono and polysaccharides. The most important ingredient is aloverose. This complex sugar that only occurs in the Aloe species "Aloe barbadensis Miller", binds the moisture filled with active ingredients on the skin.

Studies have shown Aloe vera to have the following cosmetic effects on the skin:

Supports natural regeneration

Stimulates cell renewal

Provides and binds moisture

Has anti-inflammatory properties

Indicator of effectiveness

The higher the aloverose content of Aloe vera juice, the higher the concentration of active ingredients which leads to a more pronounced positive effect on the skin. That is why we aim to achieve a high aloverose content in our work at the Finca in Andalusia and thus a high concentration of active ingredients. Vital requirements for this are organic cultivation and rapid processing after harvest.

We have been meeting both requirements for over 25 years with passionate conviction and now produce a juice that contains more than 1200 mg/l aloverose – for comparison: the average value in products on the market is currently around 400mg/l.

We use pure Aloe vera juice as the main component of our cosmetic products instead of the usual water.

Criteria of Aloe vera quality

We owe the particularly high level of active ingredients in our plants to the microclimate of Andalusia and the highest possible natural quality in cultivation and processing. With over 25 years of experience, we can release this full effectiveness in our cosmetics.

Controlled organic cultivation

By carrying out organic cultivation, we allow the plant to enjoy its natural growth period. In this way, it can accumulate all the valuable active substances over a period of several years. We reject faster growth that could be obtained from synthetic fertilizers as this stimulates the plant to quickly absorb large quantities of water. This may result in a greater yield but the proportion of active ingredients to water content decreases rapidly.

Climate in Andalusia

A series of tests has revealed that Aloe vera from Andalusia contains a particularly high level of aloverose. The seasonal temperature differences of summer and winter expose the plants to positive stress stimuli. This encourages them to store more vital active ingredients than would be necessary when cultivating them in tropical countries for example.

Processing by hand

The Aloe vera gel inside the hard outer shell of the leaves is the plant's store of active ingredients. We remove the precious leaf gel from the outer leaf shell by hand. This method is very laborious but it ensures all the active ingredients of the plant picked fresh from the field are retained. This is the only way to avoid having to filter out traces of the leaf shell such as the bitter substance Alloin in subsequent processing stages and also prevents damaging such important active ingredients or even losing them completely.

Using the pure leaf juice

Processing the pure Aloe vera juice in a product formulation is considerably more involved and more expensive than using dried Aloe vera powder subsequently reconstituted with water. When the product is dried to give powder, sensitive ingredients can either become damaged or the holistic cause-effect correlation can be destroyed. The full effect of Aloe vera is only released by using the pure juice.

Aloe instead of Aqua

In our cosmetic formulations we replace water, which is usually the main ingredient in cosmetic formulas, with our pure Aloe vera juice, fresh from the field. Read more about our formulation principle.

Cultivation and processing of the Santaverde Aloe vera

Healing Fields (2010)

Duration: 25 min

On the history of Aloe vera

The True Aloe (Aloe vera) is a plant species from the Aloe genus in the subfamily of affodiles (Asphodeloideae). So despite its prickly appearance, it does not belong to the cactus family but to the lily family. The Aloe vera was described by two discoverers independently: by Mr Linnee and Mr Miller, both of whom gave the plant a different name. That is why the same plant has two names: Aloe vera LINNEE and Aloe barbadensis MILLER. Over the years, the term "Aloe vera" prevailed, sometimes with the addition "barbadensis" (Aloe vera barbadensis Miller).

The Aloe vera plant is a succulent, i.e. it can store impressive amounts of water and nutrients in its leaves and can therefore survive for long periods without water or soil.